Wasteland
by Matthew Hage
Summary: Friends become enemies, predicting a tale of future events. They shape the land that will become the battlefield for two future friends. Who will become enemies. Characters: Shodai Hokage, Uchiha Madara. Rated for graphic violence, language. One-shot.


**Author's Note:** My interpretation of Uchiha Madara and Shodai of the Senju Clan are not absolute. I have given them my own little bit of flavor since we know little to nothing about them. I decided to do what few people really do - try to be original. If you don't like it... well I guess that sucks for you, doesn't it? Because I do like it.

**Wasteland**

The man's body, sprawled across the ground, ached already. It hurt for him to move, or to try. His armor seemed to weigh him down impossibly. He could sense the water from the lake nearby; feel the cool damp grass beneath his hot skin. He could feel the mountainous cliff looming over high above. For that solitary moment, everything around him seemed so surreal. He tried to turn over, but a sudden kick to his side sent his him rolling on to his back before a weight pressed down on his chest.

As he looked up through squinted eyes, he could see his opponent looming over him much like the cliff high-above, the figure silhouetted with his back to the sun. It was still easy to make out the same armor he wore, the do and sendan-no-ita, a bloody-red metal. Thick and unkempt black hair ran the length to his waist, the untamed strands draped loosely over the front of his body as well, covering the right side of his face. Roped loosely to his body, at an angle, was a large decorative fan, perhaps one thing that most identified this man as the leader of the Uchiha Clan.

"Is this _really_ the power of the Senju Clan?" His enemy's voice spoke with a snide and somewhat amused contempt. "Come now, surely you can do more than the little parlor tricks you have been using up until now."

He spit blood from his mouth before replying. "This... this is not you, Madara... it is the Man... Mangekyou talking... that evil... that..."

His words were cut short as a foot stomped down on his chest, forcing him to spit up more blood. "Shut up. You have lost the right to call me by that name, you weakling. From now, until the moment I kill you, you may only refer to me as 'Uchiha'. I am the very embodiment of the Uchiha Clan and all of its ideals. So... tell me, _Senju_. Are you prepared to die?"

The moment Uchiha Madara had taken to speak his mind had given the man the opportunity that he needed to recover. One hand grabbed Madara by the foot that was placed upon his chest and the other performed a single hand seal. Madara tried to utter a word of shock but the force of a sudden blast from the water of the nearby lake sent him flying yards away, giving the leader of the Senju Clan plenty of time to get to his feet and become more composed.

Sprawled upon his back for only a moment, Madara quickly sprung to his feet, already in stance for a counter-attack. One hand-seal was formed, a rushed Tiger seal, before Madara inhaled sharply. His chest bulged out for the moment, his index finger and thumb circling his lips just an inch away before letting out the breath. Flames so hot that they turned white in the air barreled toward the Senju. However, this time he was prepared. In the time it took Madara to do one hand seal, the man did four. The water from the lake behind him danced to life and encased him like a shield, taking the brunt of the attack from the Katon, the flames being dispersed by the Suiton.

A barrage of white flames assaulted the man afterwards, an array of smaller spheres of fire attempting to surround him and attack from all sides. With just as much ease, the leader of the Senju Clan summoned up more water, a powerful jet of water striking each flame with enough force to squelch it.

"Impressive," Madara mused with a chuckle. "Your water is enough to extinguish even my flames. To think, I thought the skill of Suiton went mostly to your brother."

"Let us speak more of your brother," the Senju immediately shot back, a deadened tone to his voice. "How was it his death came about, again?"

Madara cringed visibly at the mention of his deceased younger brother. To hear the Senju mention his dear younger brother and the travesty of an event that brought about his death enraged him. Pulling the large fan from his back, gripping the handle of the shaft tightly with both hands, he let his body relax into a stance of preparation.

"Never... speak of that event... _again_!"

As Madara charged, his opponent was ready. With both arms reared back at only a few feet away, Madara swung the fan like a club when he was in range, aiming to smash his target in the head. The evasion was swift, tucking and rolling to the side so that the fan swung by harmlessly overhead. The Uchiha continued his assault with powerful swing after swing until he backed the Senju Clan leader against the foot of the cliff.

"Now... you die!"

Chakra immediately began to pulse through the large fan as Madara brought it overhead. Before the attack could be completed, the Senju's hands flashed with a sequence of hand seals. The ground quaked briefly under him before cracking and shattering so that a pillar of solid rock brought the Jutsu's user up into the air, until he reached the edge of the cliff. Madara changed his attack at the last minute to accommodate this, letting out a charged burst of wind propel him into the air. Reaching the cliff's edge, Madara swung the fan one last time, missing again as the Senju dodged swiftly out of the way.

"Still on the defensive," Madara spat venomously. "You still refuse to take me seriously! I shall only kill you sooner if you go on like this... at least make this fun."

"I could say the same of you, Uchiha." The reply was issued with a small smile. "I see you still have not even activated that Sharingan you pride yourself on so much."

They met each others' gaze for a moment before Madara sneered. "You want me to use the Sharingan? Very well... perhaps then, when these eyes show you your death, you will be willing to use that Mokuton of yours."

The Uchiha's eyes widened, only one visible, the darkness of his iris turning a blood-red color, swirled with three black fangs that encircled the pupil. In activating this, Madara became more relaxed, easing his stance as he prepared himself to continue the battle.

"My Mokuton," Senju explained, "is a thing of creation… of life." His hands slowly came together in front of his chest, fingers furling around the opposite hand to perform the Snake seal. "I shall show you, Uchiha Madara, that life shall always overcome death."

Madara scoffed. "You say that... life shall always overcome death... but it is always life that decays. Come; let me end that life of yours."

The ground beneath the Senju and the Uchiha began to rumble much like when the Doton was performed. This time, as the ground cracked and split, newly grown roots sprouted up and attempted to entangle themselves around Madera's limbs. Their movements were predictable with the Sharingan, and his Fuuton-powered fan sliced through the roots to avoid being caught up in them. Much to his dismay however, the more Madara hacked away at the roots the faster they came, each end splitting off into two more like a hydra. Crouching briefly, he leapt up into the air to try and escape them but they followed true to their target. With a sudden jerk, he felt the roots pull him from the sky and slam his body back down to the ground.

"It is said with that Sharingan, you are able to predict the future in a way," the Senju pondered aloud as Madara cringed, pushing himself up to his feet. "But even if you can see into the time ahead, your body needs the speed to be able to keep up with the growth of my roots. These roots, like the roots of the village of Konoha, are many. Like the greatest tree, they can never be cut down. It is the power of camaraderie and love that keeps them strong."

"Shut up! Just shut up!" The rage that filled Madara caused his voice to quiver, a trait that was uncharacteristic to him. "I am tired of your pathetic ideas of _love_! All of that is meaningless."

More roots shot out toward Madara once again, but were temporarily stopped with a great effort. Unlike any flame he had shown during that battle, the one he suddenly exhaled caused even the daylight to seem brighter. The first layers of wood burnt away into flakes, the fire quickly consuming them.

"How can you say that?" the calmer man replied in a hurt tone. "It is because of this camaraderie and love that we were able to build this village in the first place."

"No... It was none of that." With a small grin, the Uchiha began to chuckle as he shook his head. "It was strength. We took control for ourselves because of our _power_. Do you not understand?"

The red gaze looked up toward the sun as his hand reached out to it, fingers extended. One by one they furled, imagining the sun closed tightly in his fist.

"We took hold of everything in this grip of ours and brought them to their knees. It is fear. Fear is why they submit to us, and it is fear we should continue to embrace. With this fear, soon all will bow to us. None can be more powerful..."

As Madara's voice drifted off, the only sound was that of the fire still burning. The roots were now nothing but ashes, but the flames were hot, igniting the very ground beneath their feet. The Senju man could feel the heat rising around them, feel it in the soles of his feet, though he dared not make the slightest move, thinking it could give his rival the advantage. "That... is exactly why I cannot allow you to have any power, or control, in my village anymore."

Madara's eyes widened visibly. "_Your_... village? Your village... _your_ village?" His knuckles grew white from the strain of his fists now clenching around the shaft and handle of his massive fan. "_Your_village? How _dare_ you. Without the Uchiha, the Senju would be nothing more than a bunch of pathetic wandering nomads and gypsies. It is because of the coordination of _my_ clan that we were even able to conceivably become a village. And it is with _my_ clan that we shall become more than that. First a village... soon a country... and then, an _empire_."

"Why can you not understand... that we did not rise to our position to take rule of nations? It is because of these perverse ideals of yours that you have become corrupt."

"_You_ just want all the fame and glory for yourself? Is that not it?" Madara snarled through clenched teeth. "Tell me it is not true! You feel only you are proper to be the first leader for our great nation! You must be the first! Is that not right, _Shodai_!? Answer me! I dare you to tell me that it is not true!"

The leader of the Senju clan sighed, shaking his head slowly in disappointment. "It is not true..."

"_Liar_!"

The fan of the greatest Uchiha pulsed once more with powerful chakra of the wind element, much more than before. Although the fire had mostly died down, embers still lit the ground with brief flickers. One burst of wind was all it took to bring them fully to life once more. It happened so suddenly that his enemy had no escape, instinct taking over as the Senju tried to shield his face with his arms while the white flames engulfed his entire form. A cackling Madara watched on as his former friend burned alive, the body trashing around briefly.

"Yes! Burn! Can you feel the fire burning away at your hopes and dreams, _Shodai_? Can you feel it all slipping away as your life succumbs to my death? It is over for you! It is... what?!"

Madara stared on as he noticed the flames lick over the body all too well. The smell of wood burning hit his nostrils as dark smoke rose further and further into the blue sky. A sudden force struck his back and spun him around to face his opponent during his rear attack. With no chance to counter, the metallic tip of a kunai sliced through the flesh of the left side of his face and slit cleanly over his eye. Screaming a heart-wrenching scream, Madara stumbled back as he held his face over the wound, the blood seeping through his pale fingers. The liquid warmth built up around his damaged eye, temporarily sealing his eyelids shut as it clumped against his lashes.

"Damn it! You... bastard! Shit!"

"What do you see now, _Uchiha_? What is it that Sharingan of yours sees? Could it be a demise that is not mine? Perhaps the demise and despair of yourself?"

"Wh-what... is happening?" Madara's voice had degenerated into a whimper, cracking as if about to cry. It made him sound helpless. He tried to look around, but he was blinded in one eye, his hair covering the other. "Where am I?"

The Senju was not sure how to react to this, staring evenly at the man on his hands and knees before him, still gripping a hand over his bleeding eye.

"Why... why is everything s-so hot? I... can... cannot see."

"Madara?" With the question, he reached forward to push the hair away from Madara's eye tenderly as the bloody kunai slipped from his grasp. "Madara, are you alright?"

Tears had stained his cheek opposite of where blood had, the Sharingan gone from his gaze. Instead, the child-like gaze of a watering black eye stared up at the Mokuton user in confusion. "W-why are we here?"

Kneeling down in front of Madara, the Senju clan leader tried to pull the hand away from the Uchiha's bleeding eye to observe the damage he had inflicted upon his former ally. The sudden change in Madara's expression and demeanor was confusing, but it swayed something in the Shodai's heart, a feeling that would not allow him to abandon a friend in need.

It was a short-lived feeling as he was suddenly assaulted with a sweltering heat. Madara screamed a sound that surely would have rendered his throat raw. The Senju pulled his hand away, the palm left with black burns as Madara's flesh heated up, his screaming continuing as he clawed at his own face. Swearing loudly, he started to pull at his own hair, the heated palm of his hands burning it away bit by bit, allowing him to pull it away in clumps.

"_You bastard_!" Madara screeched; it was a completely new and uncharacteristic trait. "I shall kill you. I swear I shall kill you." His voiced turned to a snarl, hair still burning away until it was left short and completely unkempt, thick tufts of the black askew in every direction. "I shall burn off every inch of your flesh, you pathetic human. I shall rip the bones out of your body, tear the eyes from your head and feast upon your remains. Do you hear me? _Do you hear me_? You... shall... die."

Seeing into Madara's remaining eye was no difficult feat as the hair that had once covered it burnt away. In his eye, the black was gone, replaced with blood red. Nearby water began to boil and the Senju could feel sweat pouring down his skin as more and more heat radiated off of Madara's. The Uchiha's clothing started to burn up, falling away from his body in small remains, caught in an updraft of pure energy before they hit the ground. His armor grew hotter and hotter, though instead of burning into his skin it nearly liquefied, rolling off of his body.

"_Now, you shall see the true power of the Uchiha Clan._" Madara's voice had grown deep, rumbling with a slight rasp though practically echoing in its own right. The Shodai could feel the darkness aura, the evil, which came with the sound. "_With this Mangekyou, even you shall not be able to touch me. I need only one eye. Are you prepared? You shall only get to see this once._"

Knowing he only had one chance, the leader of the Senju Clan went on the offensive. His hands clasped together, summoning forth massive brown and gray roots from underneath Madara just as signs of black flooded into his gaze, creating an intricate design in them of empty circles with solid black bars going through them. Like a pinwheel, the design on his eye spun around rapidly. The heat surrounding Madara had gotten so hot, the ground below him was burning away and the Shodai could feel his own armor beginning to melt just slightly, bits of his clothing underneath starting to blow away. As the roots of the Mokuton, appearing on a drastically larger scale than before, tried to encase Madara, they burnt with ease from the heat. However, a few managed to reach Madara's body though almost as if he had become ghostly, they passed through him harmlessly.

"_Bwuahaha! That shall not work on me anymore!_"

More roots erupted from the ground beneath Madara, only to pass through him completely. The bare form of the Uchiha stalked forward threateningly toward his opponent, the roots growing into full trees. A myriad of branches sprung out, bending and twisting to focus upon Madara's slow-moving body. In an instant, they sprung out in an attempt to impale through his naked body but to no avail. If it was not for the heat, the Senju would have sworn Madara was no longer there. That he was nothing more than an illusion.

"_I can see everything with this eye. Do you understand now? As long as I am able to see, I cannot be harmed. Nothing can harm me in this body. I feel... no pain. You, on the other hand, my dear Shodai. You can feel pain. You are still very human._" Madara smirked, that familiar smirk of arrogance. "_Have you prepared yourself to feel pain... that only a __**God**__ could inflict?_"

The very earth incinerated as clothing and armor alike left Shodai's sweat and blood soaked body. "You can stop this, Madara! Please, there is no need -!"

"_**Silence!**_" Madara's voice roared, causing the cliff they stood upon to shake, chunks of the edge fall off into the boiling lake below. Dark burns began to spread across the Senju's flesh the closer Madara stepped.

"I am sorry, friend... however this must be done."

Hands clasped together with the forefinger and middle finger of each extended, the Senju performed the Tiger seal. Much like the roots of his Mokuton Jutsus, tendrils began to erupt from the ground but were unaffected by the pulsing heat of Madara's body. The tendrils were pitch-black, rising up around both men, encasing their surroundings as if they were suddenly locked within a box. As more and more of the darkness overtook everything, Madara began to realize that he could no longer see any of his surroundings. This included Shodai, as the darkness swept over him like a blanket. A brief sense of fear settled deep in the pit of the Uchiha's stomach as he began to realize what was happening.

"_Bastard! You son of a bitch! How dare you attempt to hide from me, the immortal Uchiha Madara!_" Roaring furiously, Madara screamed toward the blackened sky, causing the blasting heat to flare up. He was sinking lower and lower into a crater in the ground, though was unknowing of this fact. Everything was dark; he saw nothing.

"You had said, Madara, that as long as you can see... you cannot be harmed. You ripped the eyes from your own brother's face, for the fear of an eternal darkness. Now how do you feel? Even with those eyes of yours, you have become blind."

The thought that his surroundings were merely a Genjutsu did not cross as a possibility for Madara. His heart rate increased, so much so that he thought his heart would rip itself from his chest. Falling to his knees, the heat surrounding him started to die down as feelings of hopelessness and despair overwhelmed him.

"_N-no... th... this cannot be! I... I cannot be b-blind. You swore to me!_" he yelled at the sky once more. "_You swore this would not happen! I did what you asked! I did what was necessary!_"

"Now you may wallow in your everlasting darkness, Uchiha. Remain knelt there, and suffer through the penance of your betrayal. Betrayal to your Clan, and to your village."

The Senju's voice spoke from every direction in the darkness, the ground beneath Madara quaking suddenly. It cracked and split, ripping itself apart, causing Madara to fall for an eternity until he hit the solid ground again with a loud crack. He cried out in pain of the sudden, jerking movements. In a moment, he felt something cold wash over his body, surrounding him and rushing him along the ground. It was water, water that threw him away until he fell further. The second fall was much longer than the first, though the result was the same; he landed with his weight on his left arm, feeling his elbow joint suddenly snap with the sound of tendons in his joint ripping. Jolts of pain shot up through his back as the vertebrae shattered. His left femur broke jaggedly in two with the fall, the left side of his face striking so hard it ripped through the already bloody flesh, splattering blood across the black ground.

Instantaneously, his body was picked up once more with water and washed away, the cool feeling mixing with the warmth of his blood. Even as the Senju's Genjutsu dispersed voluntarily, Madara's world remained black. His eyelid had lowered over his one good eye, the Sharingan from it deteriorated. From high above on the cliff, Shodai watched Madara's nude form float down through the newly-formed river. Above, the ground where Madara once stood had opened for yards in width and filled in with water, creating a waterfall down over the cliff until it crashed down into what was once a lake. That lake formed another river, the current leading to a place that even the Senju knew not. All created by him.

"I am sorry, my friend... that this had to be your end."

Unable to stand for any longer, Shodai collapsed to his hands and knees. What was left of his armor barely clung to his body, a good deal of his clothing incinerated with burns covering his tanned form, blood and sweat caked on over most of it. Barely maintaining consciousness, he felt the first drops of rain strike the back of his head. Seconds passed as the drumming of raindrops quickened, washing through his long, blood-soaked black hair. As his vision began to blur, he gently rested his head down next to the river he made. The man of the Senju Clan slowly drifted away from awareness, only able to envision the site of the dreadful place that he and Uchiha Madara had created, this wasteland. This valley of the end.

* * *

**A/N:** You can (possibly) expect another one-shot of Madara and more of my interpretation behind him, explaining his apparent schizophrenia/bipolar. 


End file.
